Drywall patch from a year ago finally looks like it belongs

Last summer I cut a hole in my living room wall to fix some old plumbing and slapped a California patch over it. For like 8 months that spot had a visible hump no matter how much I sanded. Then I tried using a 12 inch taping knife instead of my 6 inch one for the final coat of compound. The wider knife blended the edges way better and now you can't even tell where the patch is. Has anyone else had luck switching to a wider knife for bigger patches?

2 comments

2 Comments

alice33611d agoMost Upvoted

Not sure why folks get so bent out of shape over a drywall patch. A year of staring at a hump and you're acting like you found the holy grail with a bigger knife. Most people walk into a room and couldn't tell you if a patch is smooth or not unless it's literally a mountain. I've got a buddy whose living room wall looks like a golf course from all his patch fails and nobody has ever said a word. Maybe it's just me but spending months obsessing over a spot you only see when you sit in that one chair feels like overkill. A wider knife helps but so does just walking away and forgetting about it.

west.henry11d ago

Yeah I feel you @alice336, I was in the same boat with a patch in my hallway that I kept poking at and sanding for months. What finally worked for me was switching to a 12 inch knife and just accepting that it would never be invisible. Once I stopped caring so much about that one spot under the light, it actually looked better because I wasn't making it worse by overworking it. My wife walked in after I gave up and said it looked fine, and now I don't even notice it unless I'm specifically looking for it. Have you ever tried just hitting it with a quick skim coat and then walking away for a week before deciding if it really needs more work?